The Most Gangster Tanker Of WWII - Lafayette "War Daddy" Pool

before you ask yes this is in fact the guy that Brad Pitt's character in the movie Fury is based off of and yes the nickname War Daddy was real today we're talking about the most gangster tank commander in American history Lafayette green poool his Incredible Crew and their Infamous M4 a176 W Sherman tank known by its moniker painted across the side in the mood this video is brought to you by War Thunder the best and most realistic vehicle combat video game that has ever been made this game has over 2500 tanks planes helicopters boats and ships seriously pretty much every vehicle that's been used in armed conflict from the 1920s until modern times is in this game my favorite part about this game is the history Easter eggs and how realistic it is for example since we're talking about laf at Green pool we can actually go in pick his exact tank the M4 a176 and then we can customize it to put in the mood on the side of it just like he had on his tank and then you can hop over to x-ray mode and see how much work they actually put into this game making x-ray versions of every single vehicle showing the crew and the different components of all of it and then they use this x-ray mode in gameplay so when you shoot at an enemy tank you're not just shooting at the tank until it blows up you can shoot the enemy tank and disable the tracks you could take out the engine you could kill a single member of the crew or you could take out the entire crew and the best part about all of this it's free on PC PlayStation and Xbox so if you decide you want to give it a try I will have it linked in the description down below and when you use my link you're going to get a bunch of free stuff unlocked right off the bat Vehicles skin ingame currency everything you need to get started so go check it out let's get back to the video Once Upon a Time July 23rd 1919 two twins would be born John Thomas pool and his younger brother by 5 minutes Lafayette green pool they both spent their entire childhood growing up in Texas the Great Depression happened when they were 10 years old despite that they were both star athletes in middle school and high school and then when they graduated from high school in 1937 John and Lafayette the two brothers wanted to join the Navy together like everything else they' done in their life at this point they go down to the local Recruiting Office together and they both sign up for the US Navy then they go to get their physicals Jon passes with flying colors but lay on the other hand is rejected because his eyesight isn't good enough because he has one bad eye from an injury from when he was younger which is turning into a weird pattern at this point because there's a shocking amount of badasses that are originally rejected from the US military for apparently having bad eyesight I mean off the top of my head we've got LW in red ramage the first submarine Commander to earn the Medal of Honor which I don't know why your vision needs to be super good inside of a submarine but what ever then we've got Willis Ching Lee literally an Olympic sniper that was the greatest Battleship commander of all time that after he had won the Olympics for Sharp Shooting was told that his vision wasn't good enough and then of course we have Jay Zer Medal of Honor recipient the pilot of the most decorated air crew in US history that was also rejected because his vision wasn't good enough and now we have laf at Green pool the greatest American tanker of all time also being rejected because his vision just isn't quite good enough now that being being said here's where P's just a little bit different from those other Heroes he's trying to join in 1937 World War II has not kicked off yet so he's not overly motivated to join the military so unlike the other three he does not cheat on his eye exam to get in he decides that he's just going to go off to college and become an engineer so that's what happens John ships off to go get trained for the Navy lay decides he's going to stay around town he helps his parents out on the farm he goes off to college to become an engineer and he also decides that he's going to start boxing to earn some extra money on the side and over the course of the next three years he never loses a single match because he is an incredibly talented boxer then September 16th 1940 America decides to reinstitute the draft because World War II is looming on America because of this lay decides that he's going to try to join the military again but he's concerned that the Navy still has records of him failing his vision test from a couple of years ago so instead this time he goes to an army recruiter gets signed up goes to the physical and this time he does what all Great American Heroes do he cheats on that eye exam and he passes seriously the impact that a bunch of dudes cheating on the eye exam to get into the military is hat on the world that we live in today is profound so P ships off to training he excels at everything he does and then every time he gets leave he's always going out and taking boxing prize fights to win more money on the side so he finishes training gets assigned to the 32 armored regiment where he rapidly becomes a sergeant and a tank commander again continuing to box every second he can as World War II ramps up the 3C armored regiment's training gets more and more intense as they get put in different climates in different places all over the country they train in Louisiana they train in Pennsylvania and now they're out in the Mojave desert in California and at this point P's developed quite a name for himself everybody knows who he is he's a 6'3 boxer that's 41-0 he's never been defeated and he is one of the best if not the best tank commander that they have and because of this he gets a little bit of sway with how things go so he actually goes out and starts picking his own tank crew and he picks the best of the best in the driver seat he's got 24-year-old private first class Wilbert Richards AKA baby a nickname that he got when the crew was out for dinner one night at a diner and the waitress looked at him and said I didn't think they let babies join the Army despite having a baby face P said that he was the best tank driver in all of World War II he was so good that he could parallel park a Sherman tank in the middle of downtown New York during rush hour traffic in the Gunner seat we have Willis oler AKA groundhog a nickname that he got in the Mojave Desert because he constantly wore his goggles and had dirt rings from the goggles around his eyes at all times he is the oldest man in the crew at 28 years old he was a factory worker at an ammunition plant he was exempt from the draft but he wanted to go to war anyways so much so that he had to go to the government to get permission to quit his job so that he could be in that tank at loader we've got 21-year-old Delbert bogs AKA jailbird a nickname that he got because he was allegedly there because the judge gave him the option of go to war or go to jail standing at only 5'6 120 lbs jailbird had probably the most physically demanding job in the entire tank crew despite his stature he was able to load that that gun faster than pool could say fire and then an assistant driver and bow Gunner we have Arthur Reed who has not quite earned a nickname yet the crew then decided that their fearless leader needed a nickname too P was already becoming a legend he was an undefeated boxer he was one of the best tank commanders America had and he made sure that everybody in his crew was squared away and taken care of at all times he took complete responsibility for them he was just like their dad and for that reason they gave him one of the coolest nicknames ever and the same one from the movie Fury Ward Daddy hey don't [ __ ] yourself War daddy C is too high you owe me 40 bucks unlike the movie however P did not decide to name his tank Fury he gave it a nickname that is a thousand times cooler and Hollywood decided to change for no good reason because they named their tank in the mood when asked what that meant later Lafayette simply said that's just how I felt at the time I was in the mood so we've got the crew we've got the tank everybody has a cool nickname It's Time to Get Ready for War they start training together super hard and become one a cohesive unit at this point P who's still been going out boxing every chance he can ends up joining the Golden Gloves tournament and he actually ends up winning and becoming a Golden Gloves Champion which qualifies him for the national tournament in Chicago at this point the Army is willing to let him take leave and go participate in this National Tournament because it looks really really good for the US military if they have an active duty Sergeant that's a tank commander that's winning national titles for boxing P however decides against it because he has his crew he has his tank and he's not going let them go off to war without him so he decides to forego his dream of becoming a national Golden Glove boxing champion and instead goes off to war because of that he is then offered a slot as an officer which he also refuses because he doesn't want to leave his crew he decides that he's going to keep being an NCO so he can be a tank commander and go out with his guys shortly after that they would all ship off to England in 1943 once they get to England they just keep training getting ready waiting for orders and then in April 1944 a famous boxer by the the name of Joe Lewis aka the brown bomber comes over for a morale mission where he's going to box with some of the troops you know get everybody ready for war get him hyped up doing something cool and guess who gets slotted to fight him yeah Lafayette pool boxes Joe Lewis two months before D-Day and if you don't know who Joe Lewis is he's literally one of the greatest boxers in the history of the world this dude was 69 wins with 52 Knockouts he has one of the longest reigning title runs ever he is on a different level than Lafayette green pool for sure despite that everybody's hyped the entire regiment is going to show up to watch War Daddy go toe-to-toe with the brown bomber and it's going to be the coolest thing that's ever happened so they have this boxing match and you have to understand this is a recipe for disaster because Joe Lewis is just over here trying to do the right thing help with the war effort raise morale of the troops before they go off into battle you know he's being really cool about this whole thing he's going from unit to unit and he's boxing a new army guy every night for like months straight so I me I mean this is nothing more than a glorified sparring match to him he's not going in there trying to actually hurt the army guy hopefully the army guy is not going on to hurt him he's just going out there to put on a show p on the other hand remember just gave up his dream for a national title in boxing so that he could go to war and now the World Heavyweight Champion is there and he gets to box him so in the back of his mind there's got to be a part of him that's just like I mean maybe I could take this guy so p goes in there obviously wanting a real fight and that's exactly what he got the match starts Jo Lewis goes in there he's dancing around he's pulling his punches he's putting on a show he's being super nice to p and then the first chance P got he threw a hard punch and just cracked Joe Lewis allegedly stumbled him a little bit and then Joe Lewis tied up with p and whispered in his ear I'm going to teach you a big lesson the ref then broke him apart and Joe Lewis proceeded to beat the [ __ ] out of pool in front of the entire regiment p is later quoted as saying that he was turned Any Which Way but Loose by the brown bomber now the Silver Lining is that pool somehow managed to not get knocked out which is an achievement in itself going up against Joe Lewis and just so we're clear if you're not familiar with Combat Sports Joe LS is absolutely not being a dick right now this is 100% expected this is how everybody acts in that situation and Lafayette pool knew that's how this would go down the minute he decided to crack him because he had like 40 plus boxing matches he knew what he was getting into he got exactly what he was looking for and it's absolutely hilarious and in waddy's defense it is actually way cooler to say I got in a legitimate fight with Joe Lewis and survived even though I got my ass beat than it is to say I had a glorified sparring match with Joe Lewis one time and pretty much everybody else agrees and this serves to grow pool's reputation even more fast forward 2 months June 23rd 1944 Waddy and his crew would arrive at the beaches of Normandy 2 weeks after D-Day for the next 5 days they would make their way to the front lines following the trail of Destruction left by the Allied Forces before them and on the 6th day June 29th 1944 they would go out on their first mission attempting to drive the enemy further back using using a combination of tanks and infantry they would drive off the main road through crop fields and they would cut through the different fields and each field was divided by this thin row of trees and bushes that was called a hedro as they go through field after field and have the tanks drive through hedro after hedro making a path for the Infantry they would come through another hedge row where seemingly nothing was any different as they continued to advance through the field as soon as they reached the Midway point the two corners of the Hedge R they were in up ahead of them would open fire they had walked directly into a German anti-tank units and bushes they began taking fire from anti-tank guns machine guns and Panzer fou or tank punchers which were an early German rocket launcher designed to take out Allied tanks the Germans were so well camouflaged in the Hedge Rose ahead that they couldn't even be seen the only thing they could fire at was the muzzle flashes of the Germans firing at them first as the Americans began to return fire in the mood was struck by a Panzer fou but it was deflected off of its armor because they were too far away when they fired it and then a second and then a third and then a fourth in the mood had been hit with four tank fists and survived all of them the American tanks including in the mood attempted to drive forward to push through the Ambush but as they closed the distance between them and the German anti-tank unit they came into the effective range of the tank punchers in the mood and 17 other m4s would be hit and knocked out as P ordered his crew to bail out he would come to the realization that his bow Gunner and assistant driver Arthur Reed had been killed in action on impact with so many tanks knocked out the entire unit was forced to retreat and in a matter of minutes P's entire Battalion had lost 25 % of its men 177 soldiers and 18 tanks so P's unit falls back to the rear and they begin consolidating figuring out how many people died how many tanks they lost refitting getting reinforcements getting everything done and po receives word that his tank while it was knocked out is salvageable and it's going to be up and running in a couple of weeks at this point most tank Crews would be like cool I'll take a couple of weeks off hanging out back here not getting ambushed but W daddy and his crew were absolutely Furious that their friend was just killed and they want to get back in the fight now not in two weeks so pool Demands a new tank and his chain of command seeing that their Golden Boy wanted a new tank turns and says here you go and they give him their very first version of the new Sherman M4 the M4 a176 W with an even bigger gun that's more capable of going toe-to-toe with German tanks they are then immediately given a replacement bow gun or an assistant driver by the name of Bert close a 19-year-old kid that looks like he just got out of a high school classroom and for that reason he is immediately given the nicknamed school boy as they paint in the mood to down the side of their new tank and go back into the fight P said he learned more in that first 3 minutes of combat than he did in the three years of training prior to that he took note of how the Germans put their main anti-tank guns in the corners of the Hedge RS to triangulate fire at the middle of the field and they waited until they got into the middle of the field before opening fire so they couldn't Retreat back into the HED R easily for that reason every time they cut through a hedge R they would immediately use the main gun and fire on each Corner ahead of them and then rake every everything in between with machine gun fire attempting to Ambush the enemy first and this extremely slow painstaking form of combat went on for the first month just field after field Ambush after Ambush fight after fight it took them a month to go 5 miles further into enemy territory and this wasn't just Po's unit this was the entire military fighting tooth and nail for every inch of land that they got because of this General Omar Bradley decided to launch operation Cobra on July 25th the plan was to bomb the enemy first and and then bomb the enemy again and again and again and then roll in with tanks and take care of whatever's left on July 26 1944 operation Cobra will reach its apex when 3,300 Allied bombers dropped 14,000 tons of bombs in the span of 3 hours just for the record so we're all clear 14,000 tons is over 30 million pounds in 3 hours with all the bombings breaking down the enemy line the combat Pace really picked up as in the mood sted Ed traveling miles a day instead of miles a month during that time in the mood 2 would come toe-to-toe with its first German Panther Tank and it would take it out in a single shot with its new and improved 76 mm cannon from that moment on W daddy his crew and In the Mood 2 LED point on pretty much every single Mission his unit ran and he was driving the enemy back as fast as humanly possible in the following days it became pretty apparent to pretty much everybody that war Daddy and in the mood two were in fact the main characters of this story as he began sitting up higher and higher in his Commander's position on the tank pretty soon the other tankers began to describe it as he was sitting so high up on the tank that it looked like he was riding it like a bull showing off his cowboy boots over the next several weeks they put so many miles on In the Mood 2 and drove through so many HED RS that they wore out the engine and it needed to be replaced and at this point P being who he is is like I'm not waiting for that thing to get fixed just give me another tank so I can keep fighting and the chain of command is like actually that's perfect because now your original tank is fixed so you can just have that one back I'm no God P immediately is like no absolutely not it's older it's slower the gun is smaller and most importantly my friend died in the assistant driver's seat and I don't want to look at that for the rest of this war I'm not taking that tank he was then given a direct order to take the tank to which he's like okay fine he then orders the rest of his crew to go over to In the Mood 2 and observe it getting fixed by the mechanics and having a new motor put in it which is weird because they're not getting that tank back anyways so why on Earth is he doing that in reality he just want wanted to make sure that his crew was somewhere so they couldn't get blamed with what he's about to do so he goes over by himself picks up his new tank and then proceeds to immediately drive it directly into a lake I mean technically we don't know that for sure the only official documentation as to what happened to this tank is from the maintenance crew and it says and I quote the vehicle was believed to have been driven into a lake and at this point the chain of command is just like okay well I mean let's hold on this is the Golden Boy I don't I don't want to get rid of him hear me out he did just save a tank the other day that we were going to lose he ran in front of a bunch of machine gun fire and got that tank back so now that he threw this tank away it's basically a net zero I think we should just let it slide go ahead give him a new M4 a176 W again and we'll get him back on the front lines and that's it that's the whole story they give him a new tank and he goes back to fighting okay do you understand how incredibly gangster that is this is an entire another level of plot armor okay going toe-to-toe with the Enemy and like doing some crazy stuff and surviving that's one level going toe-to-toe with Uncle Sam about his money is a completely another level of plot armor that most people can't even fathom for example when you go to get out of the military they make you turn in every piece of equipment they ever gave you ever okay they're going to pull out a sheet of paper that's this long with a list of all of it and it's going to be the most ridiculous stuff on the planet they're going to be like yeah we gave you a uh a marker tube type in 2003 what the [ __ ] is a marker tube type oh a Sharpie you gave me a Sharpie in 2003 okay I'll just pay for it how much does a government pay for Sharpies um $79.95 is what we pay for [ __ ] Sharpies around here and then you have to pay the government $79.95 for a Sharpie that you lost 20 years ago otherwise they negatively impact your credit score the rest of us mere mortals are over here getting harassed by the US military because we lost a canteen cup at some point meanwhile W Daddy's over here waterboarding an entire tank and just walking away like nothing happened and nobody cares this is an unprecedented level of plot armor so that's August 16th he gets his new tank in the mood three August 17th the very next day they come into a humongous battle they catch up with an entire German armored unit that has 12 Panther tanks luckily the Allied Forces at this point in time have air superiority so they radio in for some planes and they come in and they bomb the entire Panther unit then after the planes drop a bunch of bombs all over them then all of the American Sherman tanks start to advance and then a couple minutes later another group of American planes come they were either p38s or p-47s depending on which source you want to read doesn't really matter either way American planes come and then they proceeded to bomb everybody the American tanks included and during this bombing run in the mood three and the tank next to it would both be hit luckily nobody in war Daddy's crew would be hurt however both of the tanks were knocked out at which point the Battalion Commander orders everybody to fall back because things have just went catastrophically wrong po orders his men to all bail out and run back baby the driver and jailbird the loader both cool dope they hop out of the tank they run back it is now pool and school boy left inside this tank the other tank right next to in the mood 3 also bailes out and they all run off however one of those crew members is hurt and they're laying on the ground Waddy sees this hops out of his tank runs over to try to save this guy drawing all the machine gun fire from the German side on in the mood three Waddy ends up making it over to this other tanker and helping to save him however Bert cl's school boy is now pinned down underneath in the mood three so he just digs in and buries himself underneath the tank hoping that he's not hit by enemy machine gun fire or an American plane so that's all he does he just lays underneath the tank and kind of buries himself in the dirt and he waits and he waits listening to the machine gun fire bounce off his tank as he hears American bombs exploding in the background and he just Waits and 10 minutes go by and suddenly somebody runs and Dives under the tank and it scares the [ __ ] out of Bert close and he looks over it's an American so he kind of relaxes for a second but that dude doesn't see Bert yet and Bert close school boy recognizes this guy it was his friend from basic training that he hadn't seen in like 2 years and close remembers on the first day of basic training this guy got asked a question by the drill instructor and he told the drill instructor I don't know and from that point on throughout the rest of their training that particular drill instructor would always tell this guy what do you know bearing that in mind school boy asks the guy hey what the hell happened and that guy responds I have no idea to which school boy responds the same thing the drill instructor would have responded what do you know and that guy whipped his head around recognizing the voice of his friend and they were reunited after like 2 years not seeing each other not knowing if they were alive they've just ran into each other in the most unfortunate circumstance on the planet and then they just hung out for the next hour in the middle of this firefight catching up because there's literally nothing else they could do and it's the most Army thing I've ever heard ever so while close is catching up with his buddy W daddy makes his way back to safety he carries that injured tanker with him and then he realizes that he's missing Bert close school boy and he was not about to lose another assistant driver and bow Gunner and he is ready to run back into hell to go get him he is then physically restrained and given a direct order to not so like an hour goes by school boy and his buddy are just chilling underneath the remnants of in the mood three waiting for the bombs to clear up finally the German armor units forced to retreat they get the all cleared the planes aren't going to be coming anymore and then they just kind of get out from underneath the tank and walk back and everything's okay so now the next problem is that in the mood 3 is gone they no longer have a tank well by that time they had already replaced the motor and in the mood too and they were ready to hop back in that so the next day August 18th through August 26th War Daddy and the crew of In the Mood 2 go ham they spearhead every single Mission driving further and further into enemy territory wrecking absolutely anybody that gets in their way pool and in the mood 3 are leading the entire third armor division deeper and deeper in enemy territory and during this point of the war the third armor division earns the nickname the spearhead division because they are leading the rest of the military into the fight because they are advancing so rapidly it is literally the largest unhealth care system in the world being beheaded by War daddy and his crew of in the mood too they are pushing so hard so fast in enemy territory that they start getting direct orders from the Balian Commander to slow down and let everybody else catch up there's accounts of In the Mood 2 taking out entire infantry companies by themselves 250 men in a single day and somehow presumably Divine plot armor despite the fact that they are the first and sometimes the only one into a fight they go completely untouched every single time then August 27th they come come across a major set of train tracks at which point they're all like I got an idea let's line the tanks up and wait and that's what they did and they waited and they waited and like 8 hours later here comes a German Train full of all types of cargo and equipment and tanks and armored vehicles rolling down the tracks and a bunch of Sherman tanks just open fire turning the entire thing into a shooting gallery destroying absolutely everything on this train at which point p is like cool now that I know which direction the trains are headed I'm going to go get the next one and he takes off heading the opposite direction that the train is going to be coming so he's going to catch this train before anybody else and sure enough like an hour later here comes another train headed in the exact same direction it is now in the mood 2 and this train going head to-head as in the mood 2 starts firing 76 mm rounds into the engine of the locomotive after two shots it completely destroys the locomotive engine as the rest of the train Glides to a halt as they pull around and the rest of the train comes into view there are four German Tiger 2 tanks tanks on this train they haven't even ran into one of these in combat yet and there's four of them sitting dead on this train but the Germans are running to get in the tanks to use them as artillery and get the guns aimed at In the Mood 2 and one of those German guns will absolutely destroy In the Mood 2 probably with a single hit at this point school boy starts using his 30 cal machine gun and War daddy starts using the 50 cal up top to shoot at these German Tiger tanks not because it's actually going to hurt the tanks but because all the machine gun fire is keeping the Germans from getting inside of them to be able to use them and while that's going on Groundhog is opening fire on the tanks with the 76 mm over and over finally being able to break through the tiger tanks armor destroying all four of the tanks as they continue to destroy everything else on this train for the next half hour it is a complete shooting galleries in the mood to reeks havoc on this now defenseless train at some point the rest of the tanks catch up and they chip into but the majority of the credit ends up going to in the mood to When the Smoke Clears they make sure all the Germans are gone and then they go go in and see what else if there's any cargo that's salvageable hoping for like I don't know German chocolate or food or most importantly booze and they go in and they start looking at all the cargo and it's an entire train besides the tanks and a couple armored cars that were on there all the cargo is just like French lingerie and fancy perfumes and a bunch of woman's stuff basically they figured the Germans were just loading up Trains full of anything they could find a value inside of France and trying to ship it back by rail to Germany to extract as much value as possible as there would being forced to retreat now here's the Silver Lining somebody had the brilliant idea of like hey it's not food and it's not beer but hear me out the entire 3D ad is on its way to Belgium right now and if we show up in Belgium and we give all the ladies there a bunch of French lingerie and perfume we're going to be heroes and then maybe just maybe they'll wear it for us if so facto there's now an entire Regiment of M4 Sherman tanks and Armored Cars full to the brim of fancy French lingerie and perfume headed to Belgium now at this point while everybody else is loading up lingerie and perfume the chain of command is having a meeting because War daddy and his tank crew just took out an entire train pretty much by themselves including four German Tiger 2 tanks so we need to get them some kind of award so it becomes clear to the chain of command that these are probably the best tank crew that America has right now and they would do a better job of serving the country if they were sent back home and sent on tour where they could tell their story and help sell war bonds and honestly they've earned it at this point so the chain of command then orders pool to fall all the way back to the very rear and let everybody else handle everything from here on out fast forward 2 hours later whoever spearheading the formation now comes up to this bridge and this bridge is the only way across this River and it's being guarded by three German Panthers and Leadership has no idea how to cross this bridge so leadership has another meeting and they're like [ __ ] I guess let's [ __ ] get War Daddy back up here we need the main character bring him up so all tanks War daddy looks like I'm in P gets the order he pulls out of the form drives to the very front again he's been gone for a whole 2 hours he gets to the front gets briefed on what's going on he evaluates the situation he looks off in the distance there's this big hill on their side of the river so he's like okay you guys stay here I'm going to go handle this so they go they drive up to the top of this hill he now has a good view of the rest of the river and he can actually make out one of the German Panther tanks he can't see the other two he doesn't know how many are there he just knows they're there they're so well camouflaged but he can see one of them so he takes aim and he gets them ready and he's like we're going to we're just going to Rapid Fire this entire thing he opens fire and as soon as he fires there's another round in by jailbird and they fire again and again and again and they take out this first Panther Tank and they do it so fast and they fire so many times that all the other tanks think that they're getting ambushed and they start retreating there was only two tanks there he sees them once they start moving but those tanks take off thinking that there's way more tanks than just one attacking them meanwhile Po's entire units kind of just sitting there like listening hearing tank fire in the back wondering what's happening few minutes later pool comes driving by again and just drives right across the bridge so everybody else is like okay and then they follow him and then problem solved War daddy Sav the day yet again at this point P's probably thinking to himself like okay this is the point where I'm supposed to stop get orders they're probably going to send me to the back of the formation again and he's like but I don't want that cuz off in the distance a couple miles ahead he sees a German town and he knows that that town is probably full of all types of important German supplies because a second ago they had three German Panther tanks trained on a single choke point it was a pretty safe place to be and he knows that if he can get there in a hurry he can probably take out a bunch of more enemy objectives so he just hauls ass straight into this town right down Main Street and sure enough there's four German ammo trucks full of German war supplies and he takes out all four of them by himself as the rest of the unit is desperately trying to keep up after a while some of the other tanks finally catch up to P but P keeps leading them deeper and further into enemy held territory and at dusk that night they'd be ambushed by more Panther tanks and that Ambush started by one of the panther tanks shooting directly at In the Mood 2 luckily it was a glancing blow and everybody was okay in the mood turns returns fire and scores a direct hit knocking out the tank as the German crew bailes out but the tank didn't burst into flames yet and that's not acceptable so In the Mood 2 advances to shoot this tank again as they hit it again the whole thing blows up as in the mood 2 gets hit again from another Panther Tank and again it glances off the armor and everybody's okay but they don't know where the hell it came from because it's so dark out they can't actually see anything so now they're just waiting and they're waiting and they're kind of moving back and forth and this Panther Tank Fires at him again and they could see the muzzle flash the panther missed and in the mood starts returning fire just in that general direction firing blindly and after four or five rounds sent that way they see an enormous explosion and Flames as they had scored a direct hit on the enemy Panther Tank with pure luck any remaining German forces are forced to flee and that was the end of that battle ble they bed down for the night they get some more gas in the tank they get everything fixed they eat some food and the next morning they take off again driving further into enemy held territory the next morning War Daddy and in the mood to take off hauling ass with the rest of the tanks pull figures that those two German Panthers Ambush them because they were trying to protect something and he wants to find out what it was so he keeps charging deeper and deeper in enemy held territory and that's when he comes across an entire German Supply Convoy and yet again War Daddy and in the mood proceed to turn this entire Supply aravan into a shooting gallery in the mood alone is credited with destroying over a 100 Vehicles two German Panther tanks two other tanks three German 88 anti-tank guns claiming over 50 enemies Kia claiming 63 as prisoners of war and a ton of others wounded When the Smoke settles from this and the leadership gets to figure out what actually happened it is decided that the in the mood crew is all going to receive bronze stars and Lafayette green pool is going to receive the distinguished service cross he would also to be nominated for the Medal of Honor but that was rejected for some reason something to do with uh being in a tank is a team effort and he didn't do it by himself so he doesn't deserve the Medal of Honor which doesn't really make sense but it never does so that happened now from here it's pretty smooth Salem they don't have much contact with the German military they're pretty much just going from town to town hanging out in a town at the end of every night however in the mood continues to be the number one spearhead of the entire Division and now instead of being the first into contact they're the first into every town and that comes with its own unique set of rewards because as soon as American tanks start rolling in all the people come running out as they start celebrating that the Americans are here to beat the Nazis and they start showering them with gifts cheeses breads fruits eggs and most importantly boo so in in the mood gets first dibs on all the booze this pattern repeats itself day after day for a little while and then they eventually come up on a bigger city called Le in Belgium once there they take the city pretty easily capturing 1500 German PS and then they essentially freed the town at which point all the town's people come rushing out to thank the Americans and surprise surprise this city is full of very attractive young Belgium women they start giving the soldiers gifts like food and booze and in exchange the soldiers break out the fancy lingerie and perfume that they liberated from that train a couple of days ago and they start giving that back in exchange and the entire thing turns into one gigantic block party that kind of ends up turning into a [ __ ] show because all the soldiers spread out as they start sleeping with all these young women showing them that inches are in fact better than centimeters and every everybody is just completely hammered which was fine there was nothing wrong with that right up until the next morning when the chain of command got the order to move out immediately at which point the leadership a they're hung over but B they're kind of looking around it's just like there's passed out people drunk all over the city on the sidewalks in the streets it's chaos the soldiers are all spread out because they all went home with different women they don't know where like 75% of their soldiers even are they radio back they're like we're going to we're going to need a couple of days to regroup we had an issue in town here so after that they spend the next couple of days regrouping and getting ready to move out again after they get regrouped it's off to the Sig freed line the border of Germany guarded by dragons teeth mines machine gun positions and Barb Wire they have to finally make their last push and break into Germany on their way to the Sig freed line pool is informed that him and his crew are not going to be allowed to spearhead this Mission either and they are to remain in the rear because him and his crew were still going to get sent home early so that they can sell war bonds and be heroes pool is also informed that they are going to be taking away as loader Dell bogs jailbird is going to be sent all the way to the rear where he is going to have to undergo a vision and hearing exam for the next 2 weeks pretty much the entire duration of the rest of their time in theater before they get sent back home and the actual reason for this was because his brother had passed away in combat two weeks prior and he was the last remaining son in his family and the commander did not want to have to tell that Man's family that he died in combat 2 weeks before he was supposed to come home so he was going to be sent all the way to the rear where he was going to stay until he could get sent back to America bearing all this in mind po agrees and he is going to remain in the rear of the formation and he's not going to be doing anything crazy he is then assigned a brand new fresh out of basic training private first class Kenneth King to be the replacement loader for jailbird the best m4 loader in all of World War II somehow a German tank snuck past the American line and managed to Ambush P's section and the first tank they managed to shoot was in the mood P immediately orders his crew to return fire which they do but the shell wasn't effective against the panther as he orders them to fire again but private first class King wasn't able to reload at the same Pace that jailbird was before him so P orders baby to throw it in reverse as he tries to get this kid more time to reload the gun he ends up jamming the gun as the panther fires another Shell at in the mood and it punches through in the mood and hits private first class Kenneth King directly in the head killing him instantly as p and groundhog are both ejected from the tank severely wounded and the tank is still being thrown in Reverse being manned by nobody except for baby and school boy driving blind they just continue to to travel in Reverse as another Panther shell hits in the mood but glances off after about 30 yards they end up hitting a ditch and rolling the entire tank well that's going on P who'd been ejected from the tank moments earlier looks down to see that one of his legs has been completely shredded by the shrapnel as he reaches into his pocket pulls out a morphine seret basically a single one-time use dose of morphine injects himself before pulling out his pocket knife and attempting to remove what's left of his leg the nearby American tanks engage the German Panther destroying it as a neighboring tank commander runs to P's Aid as p is yelling at him to go help the people in the tank he doesn't he runs up to P injects him with another morphine seret before calling Medics to Aid him when the Medics show up they inject him with yet another morphine seret and P loses Consciousness the rest of the in the mood crew survives and they end up ultimately getting reassigned to different tank Crews where they remain for the rest of World War II p on the other hand has to have his right leg amputated 8 in above the knee and he is sent back home where he spends the next 22 months in the in the hospital battling different infections rehabbing and getting fitted for a prosthetic by the time he's released from the hospital it is 1946 and World War II is over and he is then immediately discharged from the United States military because he now no longer has a leg laf at Green pool AKA W daddy and his tank crew of in the mood were in combat together for 81 days in World War II and in that 81 days they are credited with taking out 1,000 German soldiers capturing 250 more destroying 275 armored vehicles and 12 German tanks for this pool had been nominated for the Medal of Honor twice the first time the paperwork had apparently been lost and the second time he was just flat out rejected he was however awarded the distinguished service cross the Legion of Merit a Purple Heart the French qu dear and the Belgian forier after being released from the military he went back home to Texas where him and his wife started having kids and he worked as a mechanic at a gas station for a number of years and then after a few years the United States military came out with a special program where they would let people rejoin the military if they had special or desired talents regardless of their physical disabilities and pool fit that bill he was brought back into the military to serve as an adviser and to help train the next generation of tankers he would do that from 1948 until retiring in 1960 as a Warren officer 4 he then decides that his next Life Adventure is going to be to be a preacher which he does for a number of years which honestly makes sense because the Dude is super good at putting people in touch with God so he does that for a little while and then he gets bored with that and he decides that he wants to give back and help the community so he decides that he's going to be a teacher he goes and he becomes a middle school shop teacher and on the first day of any kids's shop class he would always lecture them on the importance of safety and how dangerous power tools could be right before drilling a hole directly into his wooden prosthetic leg but the kids didn't know that at the time after that he finally does truly retire and in his retirement he forms a relationship with the armored units at a of Fort Hood they bring him out there they let him drive in an M1 Abram's tank for the first time he's blown away at how much better they are than the tanks that he drove during World War II they also have him as the guest of honor at all their military events where he commonly gets to speak and he gets to know all the guys and then in 1990 they're sent off to fight in Desert Storm if you don't know Desert Storm is considered to be the last great tank battles the world has ever seen the last time that tanks were going toe-to-toe with one another on the battlefield and the entire time that his guys were out there lafette pool was back home glued to the news watching it every single moment of every single day and as Desert Storm and by extension tank versus tank warfare would come to a close so would lafette pool his health began to decline and he would pass away at the age of 71 on May 30th 1991 the very same day that he received word that his armored unit at a Fort Hood had made their way to Germany safely on their way back home to America because Desert Storm was over bringing a close not only to Tank Warfare as the world knew it but the life of one of the greatest men to ever do it so in conclusion if this has taught us anything never underestimate what you can accomplish by cheating on your next eye exam thank you for watching best way to support the channel is go by some merch over the fatle x.com and don't forget to go check out War Thunder where you can play as in the mood yourself quack bang out G I can hear all the weird German internet Fanboys already you know the Germans actually had a tank commander that had like 100 enemy tank kills blah blah blah blah blah that's more than La at pool BL yeah you know what here's the deal if you want to be MVP your team has to win secondly quit sing over the German military it's weird Germans don't even do that grow up thanks for [Music] watching

Channel: The Fat Electrician

Views: 1,523,447

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Id: e5t42dA6xCM

Length: 39min 54sec (2394 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2024